…I’ve never thought enough was that much better than too much, so here, a brief (for me) reaction about the now-notorious Gene Marks piece in Forbes. (With apologies to ABL, DougJ, and John, all of whom get this “timely” thing waaaay better than yours truly.)
I popped these thoughts up in response to this piece over at WNYC, goaded by Marks’ smarmy attempt to justify himself in the comment thread:
Marks is a condescending twerp who fails to get the key difference between anecdote and data. Sure, the tools he describes are available to all; why then any income/class/social indicator gap?
If you don’t want to go all eugenics here, then the answer is either a noxious culture argument (the David Brooks gambit, frequently debunked) or the actual acknowledgement of social injustice and the impact of discrimination on the poor, the non-white, on the unprivileged.
But if you do that, then you have to acknowledge that some redress– action at the level of society, and not just the individual — is needed to address the reality of that injustice, the practical loss to our society that results, and the moral obligation that flows when you recognize a wrong being done.
But on the strength of his post, and especially on his mealy mouthed comments here and elsewhere, Marks doesn’t want to obligate himself or his privileged buddies to pony up for such social action. So he chooses to ignore the reality of unequal opportunity.
So even if it’s true that hard work and tech are available to most/all, what Marks doesn’t get is that for many among us, even hard work and the use of all that lovely internet stuff won’t actually overcome the barriers raised by the reality of daily experience for many, many Americans.
Wanker!
Yeah, I know. Quoting oneself is a sure sign of some kind of pathology. (“Enough about me. What do you think of my hair?”)
But just to beat this dead horse one last time: I’ve used often enough the line that runs, with some variation, that is is exceptionally difficult to know that which your livelihood depends on your not knowing. With that in mind, what strikes me most about Marks’ piece is how baldly it goes to the heart of our politics right now. As noted above, the point of saying that kids of color have all that they need to succeed is both to dodge the bullet of paying for change, and, more deeply, to avoid confronting all the moral complexity of the reality of others’ experience.
Of course, that’s not a two-step unique to Marks. It’s the core mental operation required to be a member of the “I got mine, Jack” caucus of the GOP. Which is why it so important to bust apart the concept that individuals can prosper outside of society. I failed meme school — but in the metaphors I trade in day to day, the way I phrase it to myself is that atoms alone have little value; molecules interacting…now you’re talking. Elizabeth Warren says much the same notion vastly more effectively. But however we get the message across, that’s what’s up for grabs over the next year.
Image: Benjamin West, Queen Charlotte, c. 1776.
Chukwu
I already posted this in John’s thread, but I feel like you ‘ll “enjoy” it more:
Megan McArdle on the needs of the poor
Tom Levenson
@Chukwu: Not getting out of the boat. I’m 12 stepping, dammit.
divF
Bravo, Tom.
I come from a working class family, both parents immigrants, and am first generation college educated. But my father was career Army (enlisted), which meant back then (50’s – 60’s) I did not worry about missing a meal, about not having a place to live, nor did my parents have to worry about doctors’ bills. I *know* now what a difference those things made, to me and my siblings.
debg
Great post, Tom, and many thanks for the link to Yang’s column.
Tom Levenson
Thanks for the kind words above. Now I’m passing out. Over to the night rangers….
Trakker
“…the point of saying that kids of color have all that they need to succeed…”
I’ve heard this and many variations of it, and it just drives me crazy. This is, in fact, the cornerstone of today’s conservative “philosophy”: everyone starts out equal. Pay attention in school, get a good free education, and if you are willing to work hard, stay out of trouble, live frugally, and save for retirement, you can live the American Dream. Simple. Anyone can do it, and those who aren’t willing to follow this script will fail and they have only themselves to blame. Their failures are not my responsibility. Case closed. How about those Packers!
If you can prove any part of this is flawed, their whole belief system will tumble to the ground, so they cannot acknowledge a flaw in this reasoning no matter how many facts you present. Trying to reason with them is pointless.
Yutsano
I’m just curious: are there equines that are NOT quadripeds?
moderateindy
The hard truth is that if a kid doesn’t have an adult around that really truly cares about stressing education, there is really basically no chance for them to succeed academically. No kid is self-aware enough to realize how important education is to their future. For some reason our society is filled with uneducated adults that have nothing but disdain for “book learning”. Many kids are also subjected to peers that ostracize smart people. I was fortunate to grow up in a suburb where being smart was not pissed upon by adults, or the kids you went to school with.
Even poor kids that are lucky enough to have parents that truly care about their kids education face the challenge that their parents may simply not be equipped with the abilities to help their kids achieve academically. They may be single parents, or have other commitments to their time that prevent them from being able to give their kids the kind of attention and support that is needed.
The fact that there are so few chances for kids in the lower middle class down, to have only one parent have to work, means that parents have no chance to be involved with their children’s schools, and few ways to know whether or not those kids are falling behind.
The cons will never admit that it is in fact their economic policies which have made it so that damn near all households in the lower 70% need two incomes. No stay at home moms or dads means no involvement of parents at school, and less communication and information being exchanged. It also means less energy to help kids once you get home.
And all this crap is working against poor kids before you ever get into the roadblocks that come up because of things like race, and the difficulties involved in living in the inner-city. But if I was a poor black child I would work on developing a time machine, then I’d go back and be born to rich white folks in the suburbs. That plan being as realistic as this guy’s ridiculous suggestions.
Kola Noscopy
It seems to me that Queen Charlotte’s arms are about six feet long. And kind of bloated too.
ew
300baud
For the record, that’s Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” Amen, brother. Amen.
Debbie(aussie)
Wonderful comment Tom. Sadly I don’t think it(I got mine Jack) is just the GOP (or the equivilant here, the Liberal/National Party), it appears to be something that has afflicted a great number of the loudest persons in our western societies. Austerity anyone? And on a personal note, I absolutely hate those movies and stories about those who ‘made it’. They try to osay ‘see anyone can do it’, which is total and utter BS.
Warren Terra
The great, late, lamented Molly Ivins had a fantastic line relevant to this, which I will attempt to quote from memory:
Southern Beale
Yes. What pisses me off about this (other than the blatant racism and blaming the poor, etc.) is that Gene Marks — like all of the establishment whites — seems to still believe in the American dream. You know: hard work and good grades are sure-fire tickets to success.
This hasn’t been true in America for a generation. For some people — brown people, women, gays, the “poor white trash” of Appalachia, etc. — it has NEVER been true.
Marks is peddling that same shinola and it’s just ringing really false right now. It’s never been so false.
ellennelle
love the atom/molecule metaphor.
reminds me of a rolling stone interview with tom robbins (of even cowgirls get the blues and many others fame) where they somehow were talking about chemical attraction, and after the interviewer explained the scientific concept, he just said, “yup, love.”
Cheryl from Maryland
Go to Google Images and check out a contemporary 18th Century 99% er, James Gillroy. His versions of Queen Charlotte are deemed to be more accurate than that bootlicker B. West.
Not so pretty is she? It’s nice to be a privileged person who can have nice portraits.
different-church-lady
The problem with a horse like this is that every time you think you’ve finally beaten it into an ex-horse, a couple of months go by and the damn thing manages to get up and go out for yet another gallop.
different-church-lady
@Cheryl from Maryland:
Google totally hates me, but it usually doesn’t totally hate me so totally that I get not a single pertinent hit. Spelling error? Wrong name?
dr.hypercube
@different-church-lady: Gillray.
Tom Levenson
James Gillray has in fact already made an appearance in this blog.
Good times!
Jonny Scrum-half
Here’s what Marks actually said:
1. His kids are no smarter than similar kids their age from the inner city.
2. But his kids have it “much easier” than their black counterparts.
3. The “world is not fair” to black kids from the inner city because of the “difficult part of the world” in which they live and the fact that their skin color makes it more difficult to realize opportunities.
4. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean that there are no opportunities for black inner-city kids. “Everyone has a chance to succeed,” with brains, hard work and “a little luck.”
He then goes on to offer some common-sense advice about how to go about trying to succeed despite difficult circumstances.
He didn’t say that everyone will succeed, but rather that everyone had a chance to do so. He acknowledged that the road to success is more difficult for poor black kids.
I don’t understand why this was a bad thing to write, and the reaction to it is a large part of the reason why it’s so difficult to get people to have a candid discussion about race in this country.
greennotGreen
I have a white, male friend who grew up very poor in a, to say the least, disfunctional home. When we became friends, I was recently divorced and very poor as well. But I came from a middle class background, and he saw the lifestyle, and he wanted it. It took him years of hard work to get his GED, develop the right work habits, improve his grammar, dial down the melodrama in his home life…but he did it. He now has a comfortable middle class life. It took him years, even with the support of middle class (and a few very rich) friends. But he had something going for him that the poor black kid doesn’t. Along his journey, when he stopped at a convenience store for a soft drink, the clerk probably wasn’t thinking, “I’m gonna get robbed.” I don’t think women clutched their purses more tightly when he passed. Along his jouney, he wasn’t being constantly told by society, “It won’t do any good. We’ll always see you as a poser.”
The poor black kid, doing the same hard work, has that one extra obstacle of societal racism to overcome.
artem1s
a challenge to No Child Left Behind
http://preview.tinyurl.com/equal-students
very timely piece addressing many of the issues raised by the Forbes piece.
The Moar You Know
@Jonny Scrum-half: We know what he said. Where he crashes the clown car into the wall is with number 4. Because this:
Is simply not the case in America of 2011. It wasn’t the case in the America of 1958, or 1972, or 1986, or any other year you’d choose. It really has never been the case save for those who were white, middle class, and well-connected. And not always then, as I found out the hard way.
Jonny Scrum-half
@The Moar You Know: If it’s always been the case that only white, middle-class and well-connected people had a chance to succeed, how do you explain the many people who have had successful lives (not necessarily famous or rich, just comfortable middle class) who didn’t grow up white, or middle-class, etc.?
Julia Grey
Queen Charlotte looks like Keanu Reeves.
Lex
@Jonny Scrum-half: Um, gee, I don’t know … perhaps the difference between anecdote and data?
Rafer Janders
@Jonny Scrum-half:
If it’s always been the case that only white, middle-class and well-connected people had a chance to succeed, how do you explain the many people who have had successful lives (not necessarily famous or rich, just comfortable middle class) who didn’t grow up white, or middle-class, etc.?
(1) A large government effort to get them there, in the form of the GI Bill, the New Deal, the Great Society, school desegretation, busing, Head Start, Social Security, multiple and varied social programs, etc. — basically a decades-long, massive investment project to give the poor and underprivileged the education, tools and means to get ahead.
(2) Unions which fought for workers’ rights and enabled them to get paid a decent wage.
So, basically, Big Government and unions, both of which the right wing have worked vigorously to destroy.
liberal
@Jonny Scrum-half:
Yes, everyone with sufficient native talents does have a chance to succeed. The problem with this is twofold:
(1) The chance isn’t uniform for a given set of talents—if your parents are rich white people, your chances are much better
(2) As summarized, it reads like yet another screed whose implicit or explicit message is that nothing really needs to be done by government to mitigate inequality.(*)
—–
(*) NB: government on net in the US acts to worsen economic inequality by protecting rent-collection privileges.
CJ_n_PA
Having grown up poor and in a single (working) parent, six child family, I have some direct experience with some of these issues. The priorities of life are hunger, heat, sleep, and avoiding becoming the “scumbag” kid.
Education happens through osmosis mostly but it happens. Is there anyone at Forbes who has expereinced baseline hunger for years – the kind where you tear into any groceries as soon as they enter the door? When I started working at 15 it wasn’t to save for college or begin a teenage portfolio, I worked so that I could eat something – whenever I wanted it.
The cold was even worse… We never had consistant heat throughout the winter- instead we survived with a patch work of assistance for oil and kerosene heaters. Does anyone at Forbes know the smell of spilled kerosene next to an open flame?
Do they know what it is like to wake up at 2 am to a drunk parent screaming about dirty dishes? Do they know anything about wearing dirty clothes in class pictures? – hell of a legacy there…
The part that tears me up is knowing that there are many kids who have it worse than I did and they are subjected to this jackass telling them to learn to read and get your hands on a second hand computer to succeed.
Rafer Janders
@Rafer Janders:
And forget to mention civil rights and equal opportunity legislation and court decisions, again courtesy of government and the feared Activist Judges, which prevent minorities from being discriminated against and opened up new economic opportunities for them.
Jonny Scrum-half
Liberal @28 —
2 quick responses. First, I think that Marks explicitly conceded that rich white kids have a better chance of success than poor black kids.
That said, I think that your second point might be the critical issue. Perhaps everyone who has criticized Marks is reading him as implying that the only thing standing between poor black kids and success is hard work and the right choices. I don’t read his article in that manner, but I guess it’s possible that’s what he meant.
Either way, I don’t think it’s helpful to argue that Marks suffers from “white privilege,” or that one has to have grown up poor to give advice about how to succeed in life. It’s worthwhile recalling that Clarence Thomas really was born a “poor black child.” Does that mean that the conclusions he’s drawn from his experiences are more correct than, say, Angry Black Lady’s conclusions, or than the conclusions drawn by a commenter who is white?
gwangung
Given that his article focusses on the choices the student makes and NOT the external circumstances, I think you may be mistaken.
Given that these are external circumstances (which Marks admits), the pertinent point is why is it the poor student’s responsibility to adapt ? This is the actor with the least amount of resources.
Moreover, the existence of some who can overcome does not negate the existence of others who could, but were not able. Given the external circumstances, it is not their fault they could not. From society’s viewpoint, it is then extremely wasteful that we are throwing away this potential.
Brachiator
@moderateindy:
But this is what drives me nuts about the response to Marks. Yeah, he was a clown, but what does this offer anyone? “You got no parents or crappy parents. And there’s systemic racism. Tough shit, kid.”
So while it is fine to point out the inadequacy of Marks’ prescription, and of the conservative world view, the absence of a liberal remedy is just as glaring, and almost as cynical.
Jonny Scrum-half
Gwangung @32 — I don’t disagree with your statements. It is wasteful to have a large number of people for whom success is so difficult that many aren’t able to achieve it. And it’s certainly true that just because some succeed in difficult circumstances doesn’t mean that everything’s okay.
But it’s still good advice to try to make the right choices, and to take what steps you can to improve your chances of success. If kids today aren’t encouraged to do that, but instead are told that society is so stacked against them that they should simply wait until we change the basic structure of our system, that’s not going to work out well for those kids.
gwangung
@Jonny Scrum-half: This goes without saying. This SHOULD go without saying.
However, that Marks spends so much time around this and does not consider other options suggests that he thinks poor children…pardon me, poor BLACK children…do not consider this.
I find that to be unlikely. I also find it to be ungrounded in any reality faced by black children, whose choices may be rational on bases that Marks does not consider.
celticdragonchick
McMegan has an interesting post up on this now. She basically says that if you are in the same boat as most poor people, you are stuck with the same shitty choices and would have to make the same decisions.
I take back some of the things I have said about her.
Rafer Janders
@Brachiator:
So while it is fine to point out the inadequacy of Marks’ prescription, and of the conservative world view, the absence of a liberal remedy is just as glaring, and almost as cynical.
Well, no. I don’t think there’s an absence of a liberal remedy — the liberal remedy is what it has always been: well-funded schools that are just as good in every neighborhood. School lunches. Well-funded after-school programs. Good jobs, so parents can earn enough to provide food and shelter for their children. A robust social safety net to catch those who slip through the cracks. Affordable public univerities, like the UC system used to be. A focus on reducing income inequality, and on increasing social mobility, so people aren’t trapped where they are born. Etc. etc. etc. The liberal remedy is clear — it’s just that 30 plus years of conservative propaganda have made people not want to hear it or pay for it.
Brachiator
@Rafer Janders:
Gotcha.
Can you be a little more precise in exactly how this is going to happen?
While this is worthy and needed, it doesn’t do much to help anyone now, and seems to replace the conservative mantra of personal responsibility with something vague and impersonal, social forces grinding along.
moderateindy
@Brachiator:
Yeah, well this is why it is a hard truth. Because there is no real substitute for a parent that cares, is involved, and has the skill set to support their kids academic endeavors. No amount of school reform or social programs, be they liberal or conservative, can save the majority of kids that are cursed with crappy parents. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, and there are good government programs out there that try to give poor kids, regardless of color, a leg up. Should they be constantly reviewed and reformed based upon their effectiveness, of course. Unfortunately, the conservative mantra seems to revolve around bootstrapiness, and free market ideas, which don’t even work in the private sector.
That being said, the availability of decent jobs which could allow people to live on a single income, would be extremely helpful in allowing those parents that do give a crap to participate in their child’ education more fully. Because of conservative policies we have seen near complete destruction of jobs that pay a living wage for the bottom third of our society. Eventually, I think even the goobers in the Southern part of this country that seem to reflexively hate unions, will come to the conclusion that organizing with your fellow workers to negotiate with the people that have all the power is actually beneficial, not just for the workers in the union, but for basically everyone that isn’t a VP or better.